5 ms·

Something to keep in mind when talking about confounding variables is that all preindustrial cultures, including European cultures, had a GDP of less than $1000

Something to keep in mind when talking about confounding variables is that all preindustrial cultures, including European cultures, had a GDP of less than $1000 per capita per year, measured in 1990 USD. The default state of humanity is deep poverty. Industrialization brought gradual growth of economic output per capita to the tune of 10-100x compared to the preindustrial era, and the extravagant riches by historical standards the average Canadian enjoys today. The huge question: how to lift populations / cultures from their natural state of deep poverty. This effort by necessity involves radical changes in culture, which may take decades if not longer. One can't live a traditional lifestyle of fishing, hunting or subsistence farming and afford a modern heated house with indoor plumbing, driving a modern automobile to the supermarket for fresh produce in the middle of the winter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...

munk-a 5y ago
I think there's also a legitimate question of whether we should lift cultures from their natural state of deep poverty - I don't think that even that point can be decisively settled. Removing that traditional lifestyle and encouraging office work is better for the individual but will erode and destroy those cultural traditions over time without a lot of careful stewardship.
- marvin 5y ago
  I love this philosophical point. There is a sense of imperialism in forcing cultural and lifestyle changes over «your way of doing things is objectively wrong because of reasons so and so (child mortality, income, age expectancy etc)». And that’s even if there are only honest intentions behind forcing a minority (indiginous, in this case) culture to change, with no side effects that work towards the self-interest of the stronger culture. Iain Banks makes this point about human nature many times in his books. Many people will voluntarily choose a more painful lifestyle even when more comfortable options are available. I’d largely go as far as saying it’s a fundamental human right to decide what lifestyle to follow, as long as it’s consentual and doesn’t step on the huma rights of others.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    One of the reasons I am rather fond of the Amish as a group (even though their lifestyle isn't for me) is that while they do have pretty strict religious tenants, they also[1] strongly embrace and celebrate the fact that offspring are given a free choice of whether to stay within the community or leave it - it allows the individual to make the choice that's right for them but it does potentially erode the survival of the culture. The Shakers eschewed procreation as part of their culture and relied on adoption and voluntary adult membership to continue on and died out quite a while back so this sort of cultural extinction is quite a real possibility. That's where I think this gets muddled and especially difficult. Will there be people struggling in this traditional culture that really wish to live a life more in tune with western values but feel constrained by their local community to remain in a traditional setting. When it comes to children and which path the next generation takes - that's where this problem gets really hard to think on. Just the other day on HN there was a discussion of transgender rights and part of it included considerations on whether children should be able to freely elect to have non-reversible surgery (that is something of a strawman since it is an extremely rare desire in child but :shrug:) and it's a place I feel torn because developing minds are still trying to learn their identity. 1. Seem to at least from everything I've read and Pennsylvanians I've spoken to - I wasn't raised Amish and can't give a first hand account.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Adults can choose of their own free will how to live. But do they have the right to force a child into a life of disease, malnutrition and lack of education? What if the rest of society has to pay for the consequences of that choice?
    - bookofsand 5y ago
      Parents are and should be deciding the set of values and skills their children acquire. As the Amish demonstrate, there are ways to mix tradition and modernity in a functional package. However, it is highly likely that indigenous American parents would rather choose a modern education for their children. The myth that the indigenous American parents, given an informed choice, would somehow condemn their children to a life of deep poverty, malnutrition and disease outside of the industrial society is just a myth. Like indigenous Europeans, the vast majority of indigenous Americans would rather join the modern culture and enjoy the fruits of its incredible wealth generation structures. Small isolated pockets, like the Amish, notwithstanding. To those glamorizing preindustrial lifestyles, take a summer off your cushy six figure office job and go live in an unelectrified hut on some remote mountain, living off the land. With your spouse and kids. Wake up as soon as the sun rises, do hard labor all day long (e.g. manually mow a meadow with a scythe), eat polenta and maybe a bit of cheese, crash for the night, lather, rinse, repeat. Chances are you'll last less than a week. How do I know? I lasted about 10 minutes.
sangnoir 5y ago
> The huge question: how to lift populations / cultures from their natural state of deep poverty. This effort by necessity involves radical changes in culture, which may take decades if not longer. Imagine aliens from Alpha Centauri arriving on earth and say your words, but referring to the entirety of human culture, and a need to forcefully "uplift" humans, without asking us humans what we think. ...I now understand why someone said History is the sci-fi's author secret weapon - I'm sure a half-decent author could make most readers empathize with the poor, subjugated humans who may be a little unenthusiastic about being uplifted (into a hive-mind, perhaps), and having their children shipped off to a different star system as wards of a "Galactic College" to cure them of their humanity.
- alisonatwork 5y ago
  There have been several Star Trek episodes about this, notably centered around the conceit of the Prime Directive[0], which states that a starfaring society should not interfere with the development of a system- or planet-bound society. What makes it a useful conceit is the stories that can be told about when or if that directive should be broken. Should first contact be made if it would save a civilization from collapse, for example? Another issue that is touched on in some episodes is that non-interventionism as a blanket rule disadvantages the members of the community that might in fact want to be "uplifted", whether because they are currently oppressed in that community or because they simply are drawn to new and different things. I think the key thing, for me, is that each individual should be entitled to make the decision about how (or if) they choose to be "uplifted" for themselves, and they should also retain the right to withdraw from that process at any time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
- bookofsand 5y ago
  Indeed, the process might have been quite traumatic for the natives. On the flip side, the aliens might have had the best of intentions, alas executed with significant flaws. It so happens that boarding schools are (were?) a major tradition in the alien British culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school#United_Kingdom > Boarding schools in Britain started in medieval times when boys were sent to be educated at a monastery or noble household, where a lone literate cleric could be found. In the 12th century, the Pope ordered all Benedictine monasteries such as Westminster to provide charity schools, and many public schools started when such schools attracted paying students. These public schools reflected the collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as in many ways they still do, and were accordingly staffed almost entirely by clergymen until the 19th century. Private tuition at home remained the norm for aristocratic families, and for girls in particular, but after the 16th century, it was increasingly accepted that adolescents of any rank might best be educated collectively. The institution has thus adapted itself to changing social circumstances over 1,000 years.
cgio 5y ago
This analysis overlooks the significant impact of appropriation of assets from colonists. A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities.
- adolph 5y ago
  An example of this might be Saudi Arabia.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    Saudi Arabia has a very high GDP and an even higher GNI. Government-owned assets are counted toward GDP/GNI.
    - adolph 5y ago
      > A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities. SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Similarly Canada has a significant amount of resources. Colonial expropriation meant that these resources have not been controlled by the previous regimes. [A] major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.[2] This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused Ibn Saud to get serious about the search for oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in...
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        >>SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Yes that is correct, and I see your point now.
- 5y ago
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
From the article you cite (Section Characteristics): In the absence of sufficient data for nearly all economies until well into the 19th century, past GDP per capita often cannot be calculated, but only roughly estimated. A key notion in the whole process is that of subsistence, the income level which is necessary for sustaining one's life. Since pre-modern societies, by modern standards, were characterized by a very low degree of urbanization and a large majority of people working in the agricultural sector, economic historians prefer to express income in cereal units. To achieve comparability over space and time, these numbers are then converted into monetary units such as International Dollars, a step which leaves a relatively wide margin of interpretation. Also note that people "back then" were capable of providing for themselves many of the goods and services for which we rely today on others, so "GDP" translating to purchasing power is not a straightforward comparison of the capability of pre-industrial rural populations to satisfy their material needs.

munk-a 5y ago

I think there's also a legitimate question of whether we should lift cultures from their natural state of deep poverty - I don't think that even that point can be decisively settled. Removing that traditional lifestyle and encouraging office work is better for the individual but will erode and destroy those cultural traditions over time without a lot of careful stewardship.

marvin 5y ago
I love this philosophical point. There is a sense of imperialism in forcing cultural and lifestyle changes over «your way of doing things is objectively wrong because of reasons so and so (child mortality, income, age expectancy etc)». And that’s even if there are only honest intentions behind forcing a minority (indiginous, in this case) culture to change, with no side effects that work towards the self-interest of the stronger culture. Iain Banks makes this point about human nature many times in his books. Many people will voluntarily choose a more painful lifestyle even when more comfortable options are available. I’d largely go as far as saying it’s a fundamental human right to decide what lifestyle to follow, as long as it’s consentual and doesn’t step on the huma rights of others.
- munk-a 5y ago
  One of the reasons I am rather fond of the Amish as a group (even though their lifestyle isn't for me) is that while they do have pretty strict religious tenants, they also[1] strongly embrace and celebrate the fact that offspring are given a free choice of whether to stay within the community or leave it - it allows the individual to make the choice that's right for them but it does potentially erode the survival of the culture. The Shakers eschewed procreation as part of their culture and relied on adoption and voluntary adult membership to continue on and died out quite a while back so this sort of cultural extinction is quite a real possibility. That's where I think this gets muddled and especially difficult. Will there be people struggling in this traditional culture that really wish to live a life more in tune with western values but feel constrained by their local community to remain in a traditional setting. When it comes to children and which path the next generation takes - that's where this problem gets really hard to think on. Just the other day on HN there was a discussion of transgender rights and part of it included considerations on whether children should be able to freely elect to have non-reversible surgery (that is something of a strawman since it is an extremely rare desire in child but :shrug:) and it's a place I feel torn because developing minds are still trying to learn their identity. 1. Seem to at least from everything I've read and Pennsylvanians I've spoken to - I wasn't raised Amish and can't give a first hand account.
- refurb 5y ago
  Adults can choose of their own free will how to live. But do they have the right to force a child into a life of disease, malnutrition and lack of education? What if the rest of society has to pay for the consequences of that choice?
  - bookofsand 5y ago
    Parents are and should be deciding the set of values and skills their children acquire. As the Amish demonstrate, there are ways to mix tradition and modernity in a functional package. However, it is highly likely that indigenous American parents would rather choose a modern education for their children. The myth that the indigenous American parents, given an informed choice, would somehow condemn their children to a life of deep poverty, malnutrition and disease outside of the industrial society is just a myth. Like indigenous Europeans, the vast majority of indigenous Americans would rather join the modern culture and enjoy the fruits of its incredible wealth generation structures. Small isolated pockets, like the Amish, notwithstanding. To those glamorizing preindustrial lifestyles, take a summer off your cushy six figure office job and go live in an unelectrified hut on some remote mountain, living off the land. With your spouse and kids. Wake up as soon as the sun rises, do hard labor all day long (e.g. manually mow a meadow with a scythe), eat polenta and maybe a bit of cheese, crash for the night, lather, rinse, repeat. Chances are you'll last less than a week. How do I know? I lasted about 10 minutes.

sangnoir 5y ago

> The huge question: how to lift populations / cultures from their natural state of deep poverty. This effort by necessity involves radical changes in culture, which may take decades if not longer. Imagine aliens from Alpha Centauri arriving on earth and say your words, but referring to the entirety of human culture, and a need to forcefully "uplift" humans, without asking us humans what we think. ...I now understand why someone said History is the sci-fi's author secret weapon - I'm sure a half-decent author could make most readers empathize with the poor, subjugated humans who may be a little unenthusiastic about being uplifted (into a hive-mind, perhaps), and having their children shipped off to a different star system as wards of a "Galactic College" to cure them of their humanity.

alisonatwork 5y ago
There have been several Star Trek episodes about this, notably centered around the conceit of the Prime Directive[0], which states that a starfaring society should not interfere with the development of a system- or planet-bound society. What makes it a useful conceit is the stories that can be told about when or if that directive should be broken. Should first contact be made if it would save a civilization from collapse, for example? Another issue that is touched on in some episodes is that non-interventionism as a blanket rule disadvantages the members of the community that might in fact want to be "uplifted", whether because they are currently oppressed in that community or because they simply are drawn to new and different things. I think the key thing, for me, is that each individual should be entitled to make the decision about how (or if) they choose to be "uplifted" for themselves, and they should also retain the right to withdraw from that process at any time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
bookofsand 5y ago
Indeed, the process might have been quite traumatic for the natives. On the flip side, the aliens might have had the best of intentions, alas executed with significant flaws. It so happens that boarding schools are (were?) a major tradition in the alien British culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school#United_Kingdom > Boarding schools in Britain started in medieval times when boys were sent to be educated at a monastery or noble household, where a lone literate cleric could be found. In the 12th century, the Pope ordered all Benedictine monasteries such as Westminster to provide charity schools, and many public schools started when such schools attracted paying students. These public schools reflected the collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as in many ways they still do, and were accordingly staffed almost entirely by clergymen until the 19th century. Private tuition at home remained the norm for aristocratic families, and for girls in particular, but after the 16th century, it was increasingly accepted that adolescents of any rank might best be educated collectively. The institution has thus adapted itself to changing social circumstances over 1,000 years.

cgio 5y ago

This analysis overlooks the significant impact of appropriation of assets from colonists. A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities.

adolph 5y ago
An example of this might be Saudi Arabia.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Saudi Arabia has a very high GDP and an even higher GNI. Government-owned assets are counted toward GDP/GNI.
  - adolph 5y ago
    > A society with small GDP is not necessarily poor. E.g. if there's plenty of resources, available as communal, then that would change the view and sense of prosperity within these communities. SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Similarly Canada has a significant amount of resources. Colonial expropriation meant that these resources have not been controlled by the previous regimes. [A] major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.[2] This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused Ibn Saud to get serious about the search for oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in...
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      >>SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Yes that is correct, and I see your point now.
5y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

From the article you cite (Section Characteristics): In the absence of sufficient data for nearly all economies until well into the 19th century, past GDP per capita often cannot be calculated, but only roughly estimated. A key notion in the whole process is that of subsistence, the income level which is necessary for sustaining one's life. Since pre-modern societies, by modern standards, were characterized by a very low degree of urbanization and a large majority of people working in the agricultural sector, economic historians prefer to express income in cereal units. To achieve comparability over space and time, these numbers are then converted into monetary units such as International Dollars, a step which leaves a relatively wide margin of interpretation. Also note that people "back then" were capable of providing for themselves many of the goods and services for which we rely today on others, so "GDP" translating to purchasing power is not a straightforward comparison of the capability of pre-industrial rural populations to satisfy their material needs.